The Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade was so groundbreaking that it’s been two months, and we’re still feeling the reverberations. Luka has been fantastic under JJ Redick’s guidance, but Anthony Davis hasn’t set the world on fire like Nico Harrison expected him to. Even so, the Mavs GM has since doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on his stance that the trade was the right move for everyone involved. And according to an insider, it seems that the Lakers now agree with this sentiment, given Luka’s showings for them. However, just because he’s handled the Luka trade well doesn’t mean that Coach Redick is in the clear yet, based on history.

Losing a key player for your club and integrating a new one can be a tough transition. Especially when it’s someone who brought a title to the Lakers back in 2020. But an insider within the club, The Athletic‘s Jovan Buha, has come out to reveal the feelings within the organization. 2 months removed from AD’s departure, the Lakers have done well to move on. All thanks to Luka Doncic and his seamless transition from the Mavs’ powder blue to the Lakers’ Purple and Gold.

“Yeah. Well, I think Luka really gave this group a true belief that they could win the championship this season. I think they were trending that way before the Luka–AD trade. They started to figure out an identity on both sides of the ball. They had some impressive wins without AD, who had just gone down with injury. But it felt like they kinda supercharged that once they brought Luka in…So, I think Luka just propelled that belief to a different level, and we’ve seen that,” Buha told Elex Michaelson.

And the Lakers do look rejuvenated since trading AD for Luka Doncic. For a while now, fans complained that LeBron James and Anthony Davis needed better players around them. They claimed that having only 2 or 3 elite pieces in the puzzle wouldn’t suffice in the ultra-competitive Western Conference. However, Luka’s trade shut down those claims nearly instantly.

The Lakers went from being a team whose playoffs success was questionable to being a legitimate title contender, like Buha said. Through January, they were 13th in the league for offensive rating and 24th in defensive rating. By the third week of March, they’d turned it around. The Lakers were 7th in offense and 2nd in defensive rating!

It’s clear JJ Redick has done a bang-up job of integrating Luka Doncic into the team after coaching AD for most of the season. And the results were there for anyone to see during the regular season. The Lakers ended up climbing to the 3rd seed after languishing in the middle of the table for most of the season. However, even though they’re title contenders now, there’s a particular trend JJ Redick needs to keep in mind for his debut season.

Can JJ Redick continue the trend of Lakers coaches winning titles in their debut season?

Yes, you read that right. While in conversation with Elex Michaelson, Jovan Buha dropped this tidbit on us. Every Lakers coach who’s won a title for the club has won one in their debut season. This includes illustrious names such as Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, and Frank Vogel, among others. Here’s what Buha said.

“And an interesting note about JJ Redick and the Lakers coaches, which is Lakers coaches tend to do well early. If we look at history, and we’ve got a full screen of this, look at all these Lakers coaches: Bill Sharman, Paul Westhead, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Frank Vogel. All of them won the NBA championship in their first year as the Lakers’ coach. JJ Redick is hoping to be number six on that list. By the way, if Lakers coaches don’t win it in year one, they never win it at all. So there’s a lot of pressure.”

Saying that this is a “lot of pressure” seems like an understatement. The writing may be on the wall for JJ Redick with this one. Win a championship with the Lakers now, or never win one with them at all. Of course, that’s not how it works. All it really means is that even if JJ Redick can’t win a title this year, he has the chance to become the first Lakers coach to win a title with the club after missing out on during his first year. But that’s a long way away. First, he needs to focus on the upcoming series against the Timberwolves.

What do you think about all this, though? Has Anthony Davis’ departure and Luka Doncic’s arrival changed the Lakers’ fortunes? And can it spur JJ Redick on to winning a title as the head coach? Let us know!